


Epilogue, Analogue

by monsterkiss



Category: Nier Gestalt | Nier Replicant | Nier (Video Games)
Genre: Family, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:34:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28401759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monsterkiss/pseuds/monsterkiss
Summary: Nier takes a journey to visit an old friend and muses on what comes after the ending.Elsewhere, Yonah entertains a guest and considers empty spaces.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Epilogue, Analogue

**Author's Note:**

> Written for marie-confiture for the Drakenier Exchange event, who asked for some Papa Nier. I spent a fair bit of time musing over this one, balancing out this and that, trying not to make something too sad to be appropriate to give as a gift... but at the end of the day, if there's not a fair helping of maudlin, how valid a NieR fic is it, really?

“People need each other,” Popola had once told Nier, “look back at all of history and that’s what you’ll find. There’s nothing worse than being alone, and nothing you can’t do together.”

Popola was gone, now, of course. Had been for a long time. There hadn’t been anything to bury and he hadn’t wanted to, but when he had come back home to their village, Yonah sleeping in his arms, people had wanted to know where she and her twin had gone. They had been afraid, they had been afraid for a long time and he had found, tired and battered beyond harsh honestly that he could not bring himself to make it any worse. So he had given them a story, softer than the truth and stilted on his tongue, but frightened people don’t like to look at things too closely. They had added markers for them to the grave-site, where there was plenty of company, and Nier had watched the others crowding together, their numbers so diminished, and remembered that one, off-hand comment. People needed each other, even when they were gone, even when they weren’t what they wanted them to be. And right to the end, there had been nothing worse than being alone.

Still, it burned, just a little. He wasn’t really equipped for forgiveness, not in his bones. But they were dead and he was alive and Yonah was home, and so while it burned, it burned like ashes in the grate. Low and slow and quiet.

He hoisted his sword over his shoulder as he made his way across the fields, eyeing the shadows. He hadn’t wanted to be out this late, nobody did nowadays, but he was getting old and his legs didn’t carry him as far and fast as they once had. The weapon felt heavier, too, and there were swings he couldn’t quite pull off any more. For years he had driven his body on sheer adrenaline, pushing himself until pain was something that only existed in the abstract because he simply did not have the time nor the luxury of anything less. A lifetime of strife and effort was finally catching up with him and it was coming with interest, and it was incredibly frustrating but perhaps he ought to be philosophical about it. It meant there was nothing left to throw himself against. He finally had time to simply be himself, even if it turned out that his self was creaky and stiff and slept in until midday.

Yonah kept telling him to eat more vegetables, said he needed the nutrition. She had started reading the medical books in the library after they had returned from their trials and she had recovered as much as she was going to. He had worried about that, at first, that she was trying to find a cure or an escape that he knew, now, would not come. But of course she only wanted to help, seeing the village in the state it was. He’d become her first patient, listening raptly as she lectured him on infection and contamination and bandaged a few lacerations he’d barely even noticed himself getting.

She was good at it. She had always been bright and better at reading people than he had ever been, she learned fast and when she could not get exactly what her books told her she needed, she found substitutes. Most people still wouldn’t come to her, eyeing her marked skin with distrust and fear, but some people did. There were some who were not so far gone inside themselves with fear that they could not recognise that they needed all the help they could get.

Still, he had no intention of giving her extra work. He stopped when he reached the stream, darkness be damned, and sat down on the grass to rest his aching limbs for a moment. He leaned back against the least uncomfortable rock, his sword beside him like an old friend. Nier opened his pack and took a swig from his canteen, unwrapping the remainder of the food his daughter had all but forced on him before he left.

He had not been being reckless when he had avoided packing some. The bread was coarse and crumbly, wrapped around chunks of vegetable and mutton, the sauce thin and under-flavoured. He had never been a great chef, but he had tried his best, if only for the brief respite of watching happy people eating good food together on long, cold nights. But the miller had not been at her best since her brother had gone missing in the hills and the animals were thinning out, the victims of shades or, perhaps, instinctively fleeing from the same dark, grey sense of impending disaster that had been settling over the region, perhaps the whole world, for years now. Even the soil seemed to resist giving up new life, blossoms withering half-formed on the vine and seeds rotting, or perhaps it was simply as temperamental as it had always been, and he was simply too old and slow to keep on top of it. Lush gardens had become pantries had become hardy staples only, herbs and spices a luxury few could bring themselves to even dream of.

He sighed, putting the bland little package back, barely nibbled, and hauled himself to his feet again with a grunt and a clicking of joints. He didn’t have time for rest, really, and when he returned home to his daughter he would not consider the time spent in the company of poor food to be a worthy trade. 

The incline rose before him, sapping his strength at a slow and steady pace that almost made him reconsider, but the sun was reddish with the hour and his sword heavy on his back, so he ground it under his feet as he had so many other forces that had stood between himself and his goals. 

It really did grind, as well; what few roads and paths there were had fallen into disuse and been left to crumble and overgrow. That was not unusual, either, not now. For a time they had clung together, each settlement connected to the others in a complex web of needs, supply and demand that had only ever been a preamble to the true cause. Yes, you might have wool and need salt, and they might have salt and need wool, but in the end what they had needed was each other. To know that while the path may be treacherous it _could_ be walked, the beasts and barriers between _could_ be overcome, and if you could only keep walking long enough you would find others, people like you, clinging to life out there in the world, and perhaps they would be happy to see you. To look at another face and know: “I see you, and you are alive, and you see me, and so _I_ must be alive.”

Now there was nothing to find in any direction (and he really had tried _every_ direction, eventually) but frightened creatures clinging to what little they had left, and every time it was a little less. Each time more unhappy to be seen, and what reflected back from the dull, cowed gleam of their eyes was not reassuring.

But the neglect here was different. Older and deeper, maudlin and threatening. There were no tracks, human nor animal, though so many forgotten places had been taken by opportunistic creatures eager for shelter and any food forgotten. Here there was only plant-life, and what grew was wispy and dry, so brittle and colourless it might have been born dead. A few structures were visible here and there and some had been wrought in steel or carved of well-hewn wood of the kind that had long since been felled in the region, and it had rusted and rotted, left to lie fallow with the rest, even when resources and those who could work them were fading fast. People in this world might be frightened, lethargic, reactionary, but they clung to life in the way that only those who had near nothing else to cling to would. If they could buy, bribe, steal or scavenge anything that would make existing for another moment just a little more viable, they would. The things here had been left because there was something more terrifying than oblivion to confront in the taking of them.

The road itself provided hints as to why. While the tracks had long since faded, here and there debris crouched low in the ashen grass. Packs left lying where they fell, the supplies within desiccated and gnawed by vermin. Tools and valuables scattered, precious things, hard to carry, worse to lose. Weapons rusting, though most of those dropped further up, closer to the source, as those who had hoped to fight off the inevitable realised they would do no good. Some of the piles of luggage resolved themselves on closer inspection into things altogether more abandoned, marked in bleached spars of off-white bone. People had fled from this place and they had not stopped for anything. 

Nier spotted a particular landmark he was familiar with. In the shelter of a little alcove in the rock face a pile of leathers had slumped to the ground, the skulls of their owners still laying together. _Someone_ had stopped for somebody, a friend or a family member or, perhaps, he sometimes hoped, a stranger whose gaze had entangled them. They had curled up around each other here in this little nook that they must have known would not protect them, and they had watched their world eaten away into oblivion, together. 

From there it was not far, but he was almost panting when he finally stopped before the pile of rubble and detritus that was barely recognisable as an intentional collection, never mind a dwelling. He had tried to mend it once, twice, but the elements and his own body had failed them both in the end. Now he was simply content, as he had to be with so many things, that at least it was still standing.

He approached the shack and allowed himself to finally sink to the earth. It was not as soft here, the thin topsoil always under assault from rains and winds and gravity, and he winced as he got comfortable. He laid his things down beside him, his sword catching the light in a wicked swathe of ember.

He had said things, before. For quite a while he would take this moment to speak, talk about everything going on back home, Yonah, their garden, plans for the future, the remaining villagers. Then it was Yonah, shades, Emil, regrets, fear and doubt. Then it was Yonah. Then there was no more talking. Friends could get that way after a while, beyond the need for words.

So he did not mention that the garden was resisting cultivation, that the few vegetables they could grow were increasingly precious and his time even more so. He only reached into his pack and pulled out the lunar tear, slightly bruised, smaller and frailer than the last, as that had been smaller and frailer than the one before. He laid it on the shallow earth and pinned it beneath a rock he had used ever since he had returned to his first ever tribute and found it lost to the winds. The withered stems of previous offerings were still there, underneath the stone. It was not much, this fragile, listless little thing, but it was held and sheltered where it needed to be.

He chewed a few more mouthfuls of his uninspiring meal and let his thoughts drift back through the years. The pilgrimage by foot was only part of it, after all. In his mind Nier listened to Popola’s advice, explored the ruins, held the grimoire and heard its voice, raised his sword and met his friends and watched it all crumble around them a thousand times. He watched the horrors unfold a thousand times, drew blood a thousand times, stood by while Emil was warped and broken a thousand times, allowed Weiss to sacrifice himself a thousand times, heard Popola’s wracked, grieving scream a thousand times, cut down his own mirror-image a thousand times, and, at the end of it all, standing over the only one left, his sword already stained with her blood, given the choice, laid before him stark and clear, with no-one to answer to but himself…

He made that choice a thousand times. He killed the young woman who had once, in a heartbeat, given her body and her life to protect a world that had no right to demand it of her. Nier went home with his daughter. 

It felt like such a little thing, in a world already in the throes of death long before any of them had ever been born, so insignificant when they had been marked for death from the start. But it had been a choice, perhaps the only one he had ever really had-

The sound of the grass crunching underfoot was so soft it could have been the wind, but his senses had not left him yet and nor had his instincts, and in less than a breath he was up on his feet, sword in hand, whirling around.

The shade stumbled back, chittering and holding up its little hands, featureless head rolling on its shoulders. It was small, unusual these days, dwarfed by Nier and the sword he was pointing at it. He snarled, moving to hide the flowers from its view without thinking and it scrambled back until it met the wall and then started, its awful faceless head lolling as it assessed the situation.

It had to have followed him; even shades never came here now. Shades congregated wherever there were people, coming as close as they could, throwing themselves on their defences when hunger or desperation or cruelty drove them on. This place was abandoned by all but the dead. There was nothing here for them any more, nothing for anyone except him.

Miserable, ugly creatures, picking at their carcasses. He watched it writhing about, looking almost human as it tried to curl up on itself. His arm ached with the effort of holding up his sword, the light from the sun flickering as it trembled ever so slightly in his hands. His breath was still a little short from his hike, but he was not a stranger to combat and in spite of his fatigue and the ravages of time his feet were planted firmly. He could kill this shade, he knew. It was weak and alone and he had cut down far more challenging targets. It fidgeted and made its noises as he waited for it to make its move and he found himself wishing, in some small, tired part of himself, that it would simply run.

And then… it did. Nervous energy finally rooted itself and the shade bolted, further up the road, towards the abandoned settlement, the ruins. He watched it scampering away, kicking up dust, still hissing and whining, not daring to look back. Nier took a step after it, instinctively moving to follow. It would find the way ahead nothing but dead ends and yawning abyss; he could corner it and dispose of it, or it might even be panicky enough to drive over the edge of the precipice. 

He took another step, then hesitated. This was the furthest he had ever been in longer than he could recall. He had no reason to go any further, with only the corpse of the Aerie ahead, still mouldering with resentment and decay. The best of that wretched place was here. Had always been here. There was nothing that mattered in the world beyond this little ramshackle shrine he had preserved. 

Or there had been. Now there was a shade there, again. One of the creatures that had killed and corrupted and consumed the people trying to live in this merciless little scrap of a world. That had led to the suffering of everyone he had ever known, in one way or another. That had stolen his daughter from him.

His daughter who was waiting for him, now, as the sun slipped lower and the shadows grew longer. Waiting back home. He still _had_ a home, in spite of all of it.

He was still holding his sword, still standing guard over the sad little flowers pinned under the stone. The way home was clear, but so was the route onward. The sounds of the shade skittering in the dark echoed off the walls of rock. It made a keening, raspy yowl and he wondered if it had realised that it had hit a dead end. That there was nowhere left to go.

Nier redoubled his grip on his sword and looked back down the route he had come, weighing his choice.

* * *

“It’s a big house, kiddo.” 

Yonah looked up from her pot, the smell permeating the little kitchen. Kainé was laying the table, toying with the cutlery with an attention to detail that was slightly worrying.

“I know. I asked if anyone in town might like to take a room, perhaps one of the people who lost their home in one of the attacks, but so far nobody has taken an interest.”

The woman huffed, sitting down and eyeing the stew as it was ladled onto her plate. “Typical fuckin’ snobs, cutting off their noses to spite their asses, but not what I meant. You always been here, all by yourself?”

Yonah settled down opposite, blowing gently on the steam rising from her own plate. “I… can’t quite remember. It seems like I was gone for quite a few years, and, well, people don’t really talk to me much about it, but I must have been very little.” She stirred the lumps of meat and vegetables around. There was still almost a whole half of lamb left from what Kainé had brought; she’d have to try and dry some of it, or it would go to waste. The townspeople refused to touch anything her friend brought with her. “Sometimes, when I go into certain rooms, or touch certain things… I can almost… I’m sure I had a mother.”

Kainé snorted, digging into her food. For all her fascination with the cutlery, she left the fork on the table, hacking at larger chunks with her knife and feeding herself with her fingers otherwise. “Most people do. Or did, at least.”

Yonah smiled, taking a sip of water from her cup. “You know what I mean. I knew her, maybe only for a little while, but… she’s in here, somewhere.” She tapped her head with her own fork.

Her friend tore a chunk of bread from the loaf in the centre of the table, swabbing up some of the juices on her plate. “Be careful about digging around in there, kiddo. Some things are buried for a reason.”

She nodded. It wasn’t patronising, she knew, Kainé had a blunt and harsh manner but she had learned long ago to see the genuine concern behind her tone, and the genuine experience to back it up. They’d almost spoken about it, once, when someone had broken one of Yonah’s windows and despite her protests Kainé had stayed up with her all night, her swords at the ready. She’d been trying to comfort her, in her own way, by wishing violent vengeance on every single resident of the town in minute detail, then, taking a breath mid-rant, she’d fallen silent and stayed there for a while. After a few minutes she’d started talking again, this time quieter, her abrasive tone somewhat forced as she told a story of another little girl and another little settlement, and another rock. Then, abruptly, almost mid-sentence she stopped, trailed off and returned with her habitual threats and blue ranting. Yonah hadn’t said a thing the entire time, hadn’t known where to begin, but in the morning, when Kainé hung around the threshold on her way back to wherever it was she lived, Yonah had asked her if she wouldn’t mind staying another night, just to be safe. She’d agreed with barely a token protest.

Yonah took a bite out of her food, wincing and fanning her mouth. “It’s not the things that I might find that worry me,” she said, when she could speak again.

“Oh?” Kainé wiped a smear of sauce from her jaw with the back of her hand.

“No.” Yonah shook her head. “What I’m really worried about… is digging down and finding nothing. No, not even nothing,” she corrected, “finding an… absence. Where something ought to be, but isn’t. And no matter how hard I try, how much I know something _has_ to be there…”

She stared into her stew, listening to the chewing and the clink of the cup against the wood opposite her. 

“Y’know, Yonah…”

“I know.” She smiled up at her. “It’s silly, isn’t it? It doesn’t even make sense.”

Kainé’s grey eyes stared into her. Sometimes she really could look terrifying, Yonah knew, but never to her, and never when you really, really looked. 

“Nah. It makes a lotta sense.” She glanced away for a moment, smirking. “But then, I’m a batshit violent freak, so maybe it’s not a lot of comfort to make sense to me.”

Yonah laughed, the sound soft from long years of practice being gentle on her body, buying time. “No, it does make me feel better, even if it’s just that we’re both mad.”

“Well, if ya ever get sick of these cowardly bastards, you’re welcome to come with me. Not a whole lot of world to see, and all of it’s about as shitty as the rest to be honest, but it beats sitting around in musty old rooms… and digging.”

Yonah blinked up at her. She’d said it so casually, but she knew Kainé well enough to know what kind of offer that was, what kind of _promise_. 

“I’m… I’m not strong, I can’t fight at all-”

“I’ll fight. You cook. Think about it,” she said, holding up a hand when Yonah tried to splutter more self-depreciation, “we’re all gonna die someday soon, kid, and lately… it’s weird, but I get the feeling that maybe the only thing we can do is try and do it in good company. And who knows… maybe, together, we’ll find those mystery things we don’t know how to look for.”


End file.
